


Each man's life touches so many other lives

by middlemarch



Category: It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Christmas, Doctors & Physicians, F/M, Nurses, Quote, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Rejoicing was in short supply, but Mary was used to making do.
Relationships: Gustav von Olnhausen/Mary Phinney, Jedediah "Jed" Foster/Mary Phinney
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3
Collections: Mercy Street Crossover Advent Silver and AU





	Each man's life touches so many other lives

It was cold, bitter cold, but Mary had lived through colder nights. The moon was very bright in the snowless sky and she told herself it was a smile she saw etched on that distant world, a blessing. She wrapped her arms around herself a little more tightly, missing any number of things—her shearling lined gloves, her mother’s spiced cider, the familiar sound of her family’s laughter when her brother George unwrapped a lump of licorice coal. She couldn’t say she was lonely though, not with the man standing beside her.

“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word, and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon, Mary,” Jed Foster said. He was brilliant, as fine a trauma surgeon as she’d ever seen, was ever likely to see, and had saved more doomed soldiers than he had any right to, but he was mercurial, given to moods bleak and giddy and she guarded herself against him—his voice and his dark eyes and the grace of his hands, his wit and the melancholy he tried to hide within it.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were drunk, Dr. Foster,” she remarked, glancing away from the moon’s gleaming cheek to find him looking at her without any disguise or excuse.

“You know better?” he asked. He’d been so good with the local children at the party she and Bridget and Emma had insisted on, easy with them in a way Dr. Hale only pretended at, purposefully mispronouncing words to make them laugh when she knew he’d already been fluent when they’d arrived. And now it was as if that man had never existed, only this Jed who suddenly sounded exhausted underneath his banter, honest in a way he rarely let himself be.

“I know Dr. Hale took the last few bottles and tucked them away somewhere,” she said.

“Greedy sot,” Jed interrupted.

“Now, now,” Mary said, careful not to actually disagree and lie. “Unless you’re drunk on the moonlight, perhaps that’s it.”

“Perhaps it’s the company I keep,” he said, taking a step closer. “Perhaps I want—”

“What you want is impossible,” she said quickly. There was talk of a fiancée back in Baltimore and Gus’s dog tags hanging on a chain between her breasts, but she thought first of how he set his lips when they brought the wounded in, how he snarled when she urged him to set down the scalpel, how he always held his chin in his left hand while he wrote up his surgical notes, his apron still sodden with blood. How much more pronounced the hint of silver at his temples had become over only a few short months.

“Now, now,” he said softly, echoing her. “What’s this, Mary Phinney needing to be told nothing is impossible? Why, she does a half-dozen impossible things before breakfast.”

“Dr. Foster—”

“Jed,” he said, even softer but more firmly. 

“Jed, some things, some wishes, making them hurts too much,” she said. She hardly ever spoke to him this way. _What way_ , he’d say if she spoke aloud, encouraging her to tell the truth only with the affection in his dark eyes.

“Then the moon will have to be enough,” he replied, letting her see what she shouldn’t, letting her see how his eyes moved to her lips. She shivered, wanting it to be because she was cold. He wouldn’t be fooled but he might be kind.

“Come on, you’re freezing,” he said, using the icy air as a reason to catch her by the elbow, to turn her towards him. _What is it you want, Jed?_ she could murmur and know he’d answer _you, only you_ before he kissed her and the moon looked away from them both. “There’s no egg-nog or rum punch to be had, but I bet we can rustle up a hot cup of coffee.”

“Is that wise?” Mary asked.

“It’s Christmas Day and it’s the end of the world, darlin’,” he said so she heard the Chesapeake Bay and long, golden afternoons he’d spent as a boy out on the water. “We can risk a cup of coffee. I’m sure the moon won’t tell any tales.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the movie.


End file.
